Quote:
Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist
That's not really true. Yes, with current technologies renewables intermittency means you can't get close to 100%. But they can easily be 30-90% depending on location with gas as the backup.
And Form Energy just announced a 1MW/150MWh aqueous iron battery to be built in Minnesota in 2023. If that actually performs at the price quoted (1/10 Li ion) them I think we have the long duration storage needed to overcome diurnal intermittency. It still doesn't solve seasonal, but again, getting 50-95% there is better than not
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Renewables are not as intermittent as we tend to think.
Wind for example, blows in a specific area, but it tends to be blowing *to* somewhere. IE. if it's windy in Alberta, that wind moves on to Saskatchewan, so you if you have an integrated grid you can plan for that.
Intermittent energy from solar and wind can be stored in other forms than batteries as well. Things like Hydro are increasingly being thought of as a form of storage instead of as base load. Water can be pumped up to to the top of the reservoir while energy is abundant, and then released the water to generate energy.
Solar can be stored as heat in molten salts which allows you to collect the energy and store it for the day, and distribute it during the evening when the sun isn't shining but energy demands are still there.
To successfully meet climate goals we pretty much need to electrify everything, and at the same time make sure that electricity is clean. One of the things we need to achieve that goal of clean electricity is to have storage to manage intermittency, but that isn't just batteries.
We also need to look at the grid as a whole to manage intermittency, not just individual states or provinces. And we also need storage for daily/weekly/seasonal variations, but most of those can be managed with existing technology that we have today. Batteries will make up a component to be sure, but storage in the form of heat or kinetic potential is actually a lot more technologically and economically feasible than storing in batteries at this point.
As for BC selling power to AB (and vice versa because our solar and wind would actually be cheaper when it's generating) - yes! That is something that we should consider and it's a win/win for both provinces. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be on either province's roadmap. I listened to a podcast with one of the heads of BC Hydro after their new plan and they blamed AB for not being interested in it (which is probably true), and they're more looking to the south, but I wouldn't just blame AB, it seemed to be that both provinces weren't really looking at it which is unfortunate.
The good news is we actually have the technology
today to decarbonize 90% of the grid. Most of that would come from wind/solar (which are quickly becoming the most economical form of electricity generation), and existing Hydro and Nuclear. The last 10% will require more work, but we don't need to build massive new hydro dams (which as noted, do have an impacts) or nuclear plants (insanely costly), or SMRs to get 90% of the grid decarbonized. And that's good news, because frankly, we don't have the time to do that. We need to start decarbonizing *now*, not 10-20 years from now after a nuclear power plant is permitted and built or after SMR technology is developed.
P.S. Anybody interested in this thread should also read The Drawdown. Very easy read and very informative about the impactful pathways and costs to get to net zero.